REDLANDS – Acting as the Redevelopment Agency Board of Directors, the Redlands City Council approved to convey the Redlands Mall air space to the city of Redlands.

At the Dec. 20 meeting, development director Oscar Orci introduced the item, which requested action from the agency board to execute a quitclaim deed to convey the airspace.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, a “quitclaim deed” is “the release or relinquishment of a claim, action, right or title.”

When the mall was proposed in the 1970s, the city deeded the land around the mall to the Redlands Redevelopment Agency, to be used for parking, the staff report said.

“The agency then issued its 1974 Parking Lease Revenue Bonds to finance the acquisition and construction of the parking facilities necessary for the proposed Redlands Mall Project,” the report said.

Once completed, the mall parking was leased to the city, and the city’s lease payments were the revenue source for the agency’s bond repayment, the report continued.

In 1975, the city entered into a construction, operation and easement agreement that specified “title to the Redlands Mall parking would automatically vest in the city at the end of the lease term, or when the bonds were paid.”

After the lease expired and the bonds were paid, in September, the agency board authorized the quitclaim deed to close the transaction and show that the city took ownership of the parking, which also includes the airspace above the southwest portion of the mall.

“This would convey the airspace above the Gottschalks building to the city,” Orci said.

The execution of the quitclaim deed was unanimously approved by the council, acting as the agency board.